Summary of the following paper:
Rapid and mobile brand authentication of vodka using conductivity measurement by Dirk W. Lachenmeier1, Beke Schmidt2, Thorsten Bretschneider2
Introduction
*research on the detection of alcohols was very focused on adulterations of high quality alcohol with cheaper brands
*research on the detection of alcohols was also very focused on misleading labelling of vodkas
*the classic approach is to certification of vodka is gas chromatographic analysis of VOCs
*vodkas aren't all made the same, as such, it was hard to discern brands
*In addition, manufacturers could easily distill the ethyl spirit at such high degrees, that a GC would not be able to identified that inappropriate raw materials were used
*less research was focused on cases of fraud too
*that is why governments require efficient methods to authenticate spirit bands, however, these methods could prove to be very costly. A more cost effect way to authenticate vodka would be to simply evaluate a sample's conductivity
Experimental
*samples ; vodkas of different plants and batches of Bacardi, Russian, French, Finnish, Swedish and German vodka
*instrumentation; measurements were conducted using a microprocessor conductivity meter LF 537 by WTW.
*statistic; all data was evaluated using a standard statistical package for windows
Results & Discussion
*To evaluate the suitability of conductivity measurement to authenticate vodka, the researchers looked at the production of vodka and tried to identify the conductive constituents in vodka
*Water and ethanol have negligible electrical conductivities, as such, they concluded that the only conductive constituents in vodka were inorganic ions.
*to confirm their suspicion, they analyzed the anion-cation composition of 107 vodka samples
*their suspicions were right as they were able to detect several ionic species in their vodka samples
*they noticed that premium vodkas had the lowest conductivities when compared to generic vodkas. Per region, it was found that Russian vodka had the lowest, followed by Poland and Germany.
*they applied their test in a case of fraud, were customers were suspecting the bar of selling generic vodka while advertising it as premium.
*the researchers took samples and compared the conductivity of their samples with that of falsely advertised vodka and the suspected generic brand.
*based on the conductivity results, the researchers were able to prove that bar was in fact guilty of an act of fraudulence.
Rapid and mobile brand authentication of vodka using conductivity measurement by Dirk W. Lachenmeier1, Beke Schmidt2, Thorsten Bretschneider2
Introduction
*research on the detection of alcohols was very focused on adulterations of high quality alcohol with cheaper brands
*research on the detection of alcohols was also very focused on misleading labelling of vodkas
*the classic approach is to certification of vodka is gas chromatographic analysis of VOCs
*vodkas aren't all made the same, as such, it was hard to discern brands
*In addition, manufacturers could easily distill the ethyl spirit at such high degrees, that a GC would not be able to identified that inappropriate raw materials were used
*less research was focused on cases of fraud too
*that is why governments require efficient methods to authenticate spirit bands, however, these methods could prove to be very costly. A more cost effect way to authenticate vodka would be to simply evaluate a sample's conductivity
Experimental
*samples ; vodkas of different plants and batches of Bacardi, Russian, French, Finnish, Swedish and German vodka
*instrumentation; measurements were conducted using a microprocessor conductivity meter LF 537 by WTW.
*statistic; all data was evaluated using a standard statistical package for windows
Results & Discussion
*To evaluate the suitability of conductivity measurement to authenticate vodka, the researchers looked at the production of vodka and tried to identify the conductive constituents in vodka
*Water and ethanol have negligible electrical conductivities, as such, they concluded that the only conductive constituents in vodka were inorganic ions.
*to confirm their suspicion, they analyzed the anion-cation composition of 107 vodka samples
*their suspicions were right as they were able to detect several ionic species in their vodka samples
*they noticed that premium vodkas had the lowest conductivities when compared to generic vodkas. Per region, it was found that Russian vodka had the lowest, followed by Poland and Germany.
*they applied their test in a case of fraud, were customers were suspecting the bar of selling generic vodka while advertising it as premium.
*the researchers took samples and compared the conductivity of their samples with that of falsely advertised vodka and the suspected generic brand.
*based on the conductivity results, the researchers were able to prove that bar was in fact guilty of an act of fraudulence.